


Red Roads

by Major



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-05-28 21:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6345211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snart gets put on bodyguard duty. Being protective isn't really his thing, but he agrees to keep Curtis and Ray safe anyway. It's a job. It doesn't mean he likes them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Roads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pokolips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokolips/gifts).



> Diverges from Legends of Tomorrow canon after 1x05 'Fail-Safe', and Curtis Holt's husband doesn't exist.
> 
> Loved the idea of this pairing!

Len hated the idea before Oliver Queen was finished pitching it. Not surprising. Queen was insufferable in or out of his vigilante suit.

He leaned against Felicity's desk underneath the club with his legs crossed. Rip was with him. They were trying to lasso him into doing some boring bodyguard mission while one of their friends, Curtis Holt, whoever he was, finished working on a device that would help them defeat their latest monster-of-the-week supervillain. Pass.

Inspecting his nails, he drawled, "No."

Team Arrow took turns frowning at each other. It shouldn't have surprised them that he wasn't eager to help. He didn't like them, and not helping had the double benefit of leaving him time to do what he wanted _and_ screw them over. Win, win.

Rip was in full dictator mode. "You're the only other member of the team I can spare at the moment. It will only be two weeks."

Normally, he would jump at the chance to neglect hero duties and get some downtime. Babysitting some science geek in an isolated Alaskan lab that Palmer owned at least had the perk of being in the cold and away from the other members of his exhaustingly _good_ teammates, but the other person assigned to help was Ray Palmer. He made it his responsibility for his own mental health to avoid him unless doing so would result in imminent death. Even that wasn't always convincing incentive if the death in question wasn't his own.

"Fine," he agreed since nothing worth stealing came to mind to make blowing them off more urgent. But not without stipulations. "But I want to go with Mick instead."

Rip shook his head. "We need him. He has an in with the criminal network we're going to infiltrate. You'll go with Ray."

"Fine," he said again, "but I get to shoot him if he annoys me."

"No."

"Not to death," he negotiated. "Just until he shuts up."

Oliver's glare intensified. " _No._ "

Weren't heroes supposed to understand compromises and sacrifice? He didn't know how anyone tolerated their hypocrisy.

****

The job was only supposed to last two weeks, so he and Mick didn't do more than clank glasses and down vodka together before he was due to set off. Len leaned on the short dresser beside Mick's chair in his private quarters on the ship. He hadn't done anything to decorate the place.

There was a silver lighter on the nightstand with _M.R._ engraved on the bottom, a gift Len stole from a drug lord in Vegas and had engraved special for his friend. It was the only personal effect in the whole room. Mick wasn't tidy. He just hid what he valued and displayed what he needed on hand. It was all the room needed for Len to peg the room as his.

"We could ditch," Mick suggested. "Go off on our own."

It wasn't a terrible idea. It never was, and it came up often. They were always one annoyance with the team or one big score away from taking each other up on it.

"Infiltrate the Louvre," Len fantasized aloud. "Defuse the security system. Finesse our way to the art."

Mick never preferred subtlety when the world was full of gasoline. "Or burn it down and loot what we want."

Len smiled. They were thieves at heart and partners to the core. It was their favorite place to go in their minds, a familiar path to wander in their imagination even if neither of them were done here despite what they told themselves. There was work to do. They would stick it out until it was done.

"Next time," he promised and meant it. Once they were done there, they were done. But for now, they could play good guys. It didn't change who they were. It changed what they did. It was all just temporary until they went back to their real lives.

They finished their drinks and parted ways to continue playing their designated roles. For now.

****

Rip dropped them off before carting the rest of them away on their own mission. It was worse than being benched. He was in the penalty box, and the penalty was being stuck with only Ray Palmer and some science geek for company.

The snow stretched far and wide. The hood of his parka was up, but even so, the cold crept under his skin and curled frigid fingers around his body. He lifted his face towards the moonlight and smiled. As far as locations went, it was ideal.

Then Ray ruined it by stepping up to his side and reminding him that he existed.

"This is going to be fun!" Ray grinned, oafish and happy. Always happy. It was irritating.

Len frowned and walked away towards the lab, the thick snow crunching under his boots. They were alone out there, no one else for miles and miles. A good place to hide a body, little chance of it thawing and being discovered before a proper getaway. He would keep that in mind.

Ray and Curtis hit it off right away. Handshakes were barely exchanged before they were rambling over each other. It was a match made in nerd Heaven. Len and Curtis, not so much. He ignored the hand offered to him and wandered to the counter against the far wall, jumping up onto it and pointedly trying to ignore them. It was the easiest way to make the time pass. It wasn't like he expected to like the guy. He didn't warm to people often. It came with the territory. Freezing people out came naturally.

"Mr. Snart," Curtis turned to him, leaning up and away from the little metal device he was working on and furrowing his brows. "Or should I call you Leonard? Is it Lenny?"

" _No._ " Not to him.

Curtis went on, undeterred. "Come over here. I'll show you what I'm trying to do. It's time consuming but really not that hard, and when it's done it'll do a lot of good in Central City."

Len was bored already. "There are few things I care about, and what you're doing isn't one of them."

Unfortunately, Curtis wasn't easily thwarted. "That's just because you don't know what it is." He went on in excited detail, some of which Len understood, almost all of which he couldn't care less about. "Could I see your tech?"

Len didn't show his cold gun to just anyone. "No."

"Maybe later then."

"Maybe never," Len drawled. "No, definitely never."

Since Len wouldn't go over, Curtis came to him. He showed him the little sphere and talked for days (or what seemed like it) about how he was making it and how it would function when it was finished. No amount of silent glaring shut him up. Ray came over and hopped up next to him on the counter with a friendly smile in his direction. Len glared back, crowded on all sides.

Finally, just to get him to _stop talking_ , he jutted his gun out, bumping his stomach with it. Curtis took it, inspecting it all over and asking a million questions that Len ignored. His aggressive indifference didn't damper his mood.

He was beaming as he eventually stopped rambling to surmise, "Cool."

Len took his gun back, a spark in his eyes. "Technically, cold."

Curtis grinned. "I love a villain with good puns. Well, except for Major Spray. He's got jokes, but his pesticide bombs killed a whole bunch of people, so. Yeah. That guy still sucks."

"Fascinating." Len hopped down from the counter, shoving both of them out of his way as he marched across the lab towards the living quarters on the other side of the little building. "I'm going to bed. Bother me, and I'll blast you and use your bodies to build an igloo outside."

"Sure thing," Curtis said.

"Good night, Snart!" Ray called.

Len grumbled as he slammed the door shut after him.

****

There was only one bedroom next to a tiny kitchen and a bathroom with a cramped shower. Small cots lined three opposing walls. Len took the one in the middle that stretched beneath the one window in the room. He stared out through the small square at the moonlight blanketing the snowy landscape, white on white, and enjoyed the peace that came with the freeze.

He pretended to be asleep when the others came in later, still whispering quietly to each other as they got dressed for bed. On his side, back to them and facing the wall, he tried to block them out.

"I think he hates me," Curtis said quietly, clearly meaning him, and Len had to will himself not to smile at the accuracy of the assessment.

"Snart thinks he hates everybody," Ray whispered back. The springs of the cot on his right along the other wall creaked as he lowered himself down onto it.

"Thinks?" The cot to the left strained under new weight.

Ray chuckled softly. "Snart is like his gun. Looks scary, but the safety is usually on."

What a quaint little opinion.

Len couldn't help speaking up now, "It can also kill you. Would you like to see?"

The room went abruptly quiet. The stiff threatening silence was music to his ears. That was more like it. He smiled in the darkness and fell into an easy sleep.

****

They fell into a routine. Breakfast around the small kitchen table with a textbook shoved under one of the rickety legs: Ray was chatty (there was never one God given minute when he wasn't), Curtis mostly yawned and ate, and Len ignored them both in favor of daydreaming about a big heist. He was never sure which part he loved most: the money, the extra notch in his rep, or the look on Mick's face in the getaway car when there was nothing behind them but an open road and a fire in the distance.

Lunch was more scattered. Len was usually good with an MRE from storage, he didn't know or care what Ray did, and Curtis worked through lunch. It was during their second week that he caught Ray bringing an extra sandwich over to him at his work station in the lab. How sweet. And nauseating. He spent the rest of the afternoon outside, checking the perimeter for any signs of danger. He wished the Central City villain (he heard that Cisco named him Roadkiller) would find them or send some cronies at least. He could do with something to blast.

A week before the mission was set to be complete, his restlessness propelled him from the countertop in the corner of the lab where he had been staring blankly into space for the last forty-five minutes.

Ray and Curtis both flinched as his voice boomed through the quiet room where they were working in tandem over a microscope (with hands that lingered suspiciously close as they moved through the slides). "What does a guy have to do around here for something stronger than orange pop?"

Curtis straightened out of his hunch and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "There's a couple of snowmobiles in the garage."

That would do it. Part of keeping this geek safe was not only knowing the layout of this isolated compound but memorizing the map of the entire area to best know the direction that danger was most likely to come from. The answer was nowhere, unfortunately.

The nearest town was twenty miles out. He could make the ride and be back by the time the moon had reached its highest peak. "Great. Try not to get eaten by wolves before I get back. I'd end up getting stuck out here even longer while they got someone to replace you and finish that thing."

That phrasing didn't sit well with Curtis. "Your priorities make me uncomfortable."

"That's how I feel about long-term exposure to losers, but here we are." He was there to do a job, and he would do it. No harm would come to Holt (or Ray, he thought grudgingly) while they were still prepping for the science fair, but he was there to keep him safe. That didn't mean he had to make him _feel_ safe. Where was the fun in that?

Ray's voice stalled him at the door. "I'm a self-made billionaire with technology that will do a lot to benefit the scientific world, and Curtis is terrific. He's single-handedly inventing a device that will end up saving dozens, if not hundreds, of lives. I'd hardly say 'loser' defines us."

He stared back at him blankly. "Then get a new dictionary. I promise, your pictures are there. You're also in the thesaurus under a list of synonyms for 'annoying'. Goodbye. I'll see you after a blackout and decent hangover if the wolves don't get you first."

He got the door open before Curtis took a turn stalling his departure, "Want some company?"

Wouldn't that be nice? "Sure, but Mick's not here. So looks like I'm out of luck."

"Oh, I meant—"

"He knew what you meant," he heard Ray say as the door was shutting behind him.

"Oh." Curtis sounded properly surprised and insulted. "That's not very nice."

Not very at all. He grinned on his way out.

****

He got thrown out of the bar for accidentally hitting someone over the back of the head with a shot glass when they drunkenly fired a dart into his thigh, so no blackout for him. It was late enough for the others to be asleep, just not where he thought they would be.

Crashed in front of the TV in the tiny storage space that they converted into a living room with a dusty loveseat they found in the basement, Ray's laptop was still playing on the folding table in front of them. Curtis was slumped against the corner of the loveseat, glasses askew, and Ray had slid sideways in sleep, head on his shoulder, lazily pressed against his side. What a charming pair they made.

He glanced at the screen where _The Goonies_ was playing. Now there were some villains that understood the value of a good treasure hunt. He almost wished he hadn't missed the viewing - that much gold gave him a toothache - if it weren't for the company attached to it.

There was a blanket over the armrest farthest from them. It would be all too easy to shake it out and cover them up in the cool room. They could spend the night there as comfortably as they would in their own beds.

Len turned on his heel, stopping at the thermostat to switch the heater over to air conditioning and lower the temperature as far as it would allow. Walking off for his warm bed, the idea of them waking up with their teeth chattering went down even smoother than the whiskey at the bar. They could freeze.

****

The two week mark came, and Len marched out with his small bag in hand, prepared to leave and forget about the entire experience. Ray and Curtis were standing in the lab wincing and avoiding eye contact. He narrowed his eyes.

"What?"

Curtis took a deep breath, pointed at nothing, and finally admitted, "It isn't done."

"What?" he repeated, more tightly than before since he could see where that was going.

Ray sighed. "It's going to take another," he considered the timeline, "six weeks or so."

"Six. Weeks."

Curtis was quick to smooth things over. "I know I said it would only take me two, but. That turned out to be optimistic. There were some unforeseen complications, and I sent out for more parts. It really should be done in six, though. That's not optimism; that's reasonable."

"Whatever," he interrupted. They could live up there for the rest of their irritating lives for all he cared. "I agreed to two weeks. Two weeks is over. It isn't my fault you're slow, incapable failures. I'm out."

"Snart," Ray moved in front of him as he tried to move to the door. "The mission isn't over."

So overgrown and earnest. And so easy to blast into an icicle if the need arose.

Len met his eyes coolly, "Move."

"There's nowhere to go," Curtis said guiltily. "Ray already contacted your team."

Ray nodded. "Rip and Oliver agreed it was best for us to stay up here and finish what we started."

"Oh, did they?" How funny, because he didn't remember having a chance to weigh in on the situation.

"They're not coming," Ray said. "We'll be picked up in six weeks. When we're done."

"Sure," Len replied. "Or I could take one of the snowmobiles into town, buy a ticket on the next flight out of here, and leave as planned."

Ray gave him one of those painfully sincere looks of his, like he was running for office and convincing voters he was an upstanding guy and not just a twit with good lies and a nice smile. "Or you could stay. Every mission has hiccups."

"You and Holt aren't hiccups," Len looked between them and wondered again why he was doing the good guy number when being good had never given him anything but near-death experiences and boredom. "You're worms eating at my brain. My leaving will save a life."

Ray frowned, oh so disappointed in his open antagonism. "Our company won't kill you."

"No. But it might kill you." He wasn't sure how hyperbolic the threat was anymore. It was certainly a nice fantasy.

"Who are we killing?"

Len looked up in surprise to see the door leading outside was open. Falling snow created a white screen behind the hulking figure of Mick.

A slow smile crawled across Len's face. "Please tell me this means our ride is here, and I can leave this freezer behind."

"No such luck. Got the night off. Leaving in the morning. Rip dropped me off with a gift." Mick held up a small box and rattled it.

"Ooh, please don't do that!" Curtis rushed forward and took the box from him, undoubtedly the extra supplies he sent for. "Hi. I'm Curtis Holt. Nice to meet you."

Mick looked down at the hand being offered to him and unceremoniously rammed his shoulder as he past him to walk over to Len.

"Liquor?" he asked.

Len dropped his bag on the floor to deal with later and nodded towards the door. "And snowmobiles."

They shared the kind of grins they got over unstable nitro bombs or facing down people that would become target practice, outnumbered and teetering towards certain death. That edge-of-a-cliff thrill they got every time they got their hands on a new priceless gem rose in them on a welcome mat, because catching themselves with one hand, fingers slipping, and not falling to the jagged rocks below wasn't all of the point but it was a lot of it. The best way to feel alive was to flirt and introduce yourself to death. It kept the heart pumping.

"Uh, guys," Ray started, walking closer warily. "Can you not race or crash those things? In the case of an emergency, that's our only transportation to help."

"Can't you shrink and fly?" Mick pointed out.

Len strode to the door. "If we have an emergency out here, it means the big bad of Central City found us. We're dead, or we're the last men standing. Snowmobiles won't keep us alive. Making the other people dead will take care of that."

"Except I don't believe that killing people should ever be Plan A!" Ray called after him.

"And one day that will certainly get you killed." Len turned back to throw him a sarcastic, "Pity."

He and Mick left side by side.

They burst out of the garage on matching snowmobiles at the same time, keeping pace with each other and taking advantage of the modifications Len had made on them in his spare time (which was all of his time out there) to make them go faster. Mick started to pull ahead, so Len resorted to his oldest and fondest trick, cheating. Pulling out his gun, he blasted the area in front of them. Snow kicked up in an explosion of white dust and blinded Mick long enough to slow him down and let Len pull ahead. Mick's wild laughter behind him put the first genuine smile on his face in weeks.

Between the two of them, they drank a party of four under the table, got into a fight that was only busted up with a bartender's bat and a broken dart board, and stole a bottle of whiskey as they were thrown out into the snow.

Len raised himself up on his elbows and looked over at Mick sprawled out in the powder in perfect position for some snow angels. "Just like old times."

He pulled the bottle out from under his parka, and Mick grinned as they dusted themselves off and dropped down on the little curb of an empty parking spot.

"To getting the hell out of here," Len said after taking a swig and passing him the bottle.

"To warming this place up with a little fire," Mick raised the bottle and took a gulp.

Len was just sick enough of being there to let him burn the whole town down. "Make it a lot of fire."

Mick toasted to that and hoarded the bottle but didn't drink more than his share. He was always good like that. What they had was theirs, and they split it down the middle. Getting up when the other got in a fight, bloody knuckles, cliff edges, and trusting someone to split the loot by half without having to count it afterwards: that was how Len understood the word 'team'. It wasn't up in Rip's time bending ship, and it sure as hell wasn't out in that cold lab with Palmer and Holt.

****

They were barely through the door of the lab when their curfew was called into question.

Ray's arms were crossed and his eyebrows were knit. Looked like he was ready to spout about Serious Business. "You might want to think about how inconsiderate it is for you to be out at all hours without leaving any form of transportation for us to go look for you. It's four in the morning. Curtis and I have gone out of our way to be courteous to you despite your persistently bad attitude. The least you could do is show us the respect of letting us know you're alright, so we know we don't have to trek into town looking for you in the morning."

"Sorry, Mom. But last I checked, I don't owe anybody anything, least of all you." Len waved at Ray's socked feet and blue pajama pants. "Don't trip on your soap box when you're demounting."

"Did you bring us back anything?" Curtis walked in from the hallway to ask, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah. Here," Mick reached into his pocket and tossed a rolled up napkin at him. It hit his stomach and fell.

Curtis picked it up off the floor where it landed and uncrinkled it in confusion. "This is just a dirty napkin."

"And I could have given it to you or a trash can, and I chose you," Mick said.

"Very generous," Curtis tossed it, sending it sailing into the trash can in the corner of the room.

Len's instincts were hazy, and his reaction time was slow from all the booze. He was too distracted by Curtis and Ray's back-patting commiseration over the inconsiderate nature and general evils of Captain Cold and Heat Wave to notice danger when it crept up fast.

"This the thing?" Mick asked from Curtis' main work station. "What's so special about it? Looks weak. Bet I could crush it in my hand."

Before any of them could stop him, Mick grabbed the spherical device from its specially made stand and squeezed it in his fist. Recklessness, trouble, and threats against their lives: those were the other things Len knew about teams. The second Mick applied pressure to the silver sphere, an explosive sound like the crack of thunder radiated outward and shook the walls under the force of it. Len's hands flew to his ears from the pain of it, but the next second, it was gone.

Silence was restored but not everywhere. The sphere was still gripped in Mick's fist, his jaw tightened, teeth grit, and he fell to his knees with his other hand clutched against his ear. His mouth was open in a silent cry.

"Mick!" He ran for him, but Ray pushed him back.

"Don't touch him!"

"Get out of my way—"

"Wait! Let Curtis do it, or you'll make it worse."

He pushed forward anyway, but Ray shoved him back.

"Just knock it out of his hand!" he shouted.

Curtis went to his station and started quickly gathering materials, voice surprisingly calm in a crisis, "Do that, and you'll kill him."

Len stilled with an effort, but Mick was seizing now. Spit was seething at his mouth, and all his muscles were tight.

"Do something!" he demanded.

Curtis dropped to his knees beside Mick with two thick cylindrical instruments in his hands. He held them over the sphere. It rattled in Mick's hand, and his seizure stopped. Curtis lowered the instruments closer to it, and the sphere escaped from Mick's clenched fingers and floated up into the air slowly, stopping between the two wands. Carefully, Curtis rose to his feet, the sphere suspended in the air rising with him. With measured steps and concentration, Curtis hover-carried the device back to its stand where it locked back into place.

Len lowered himself to Mick's side, but he was unconscious. "Mick?"

Curtis was kneeling on the other side of him again. He met his eyes over his limp body as he started to check him out. "He'll be okay. You're not supposed to touch it yet. That's one of the big beta problems with it. Instead of doing what it's supposed to do, it's untouchable and, uh, lethal."

Len's heart was beginning to slow back to a rate less likely to throw him into cardiac arrest as his panic mellowed into that state between nearly getting busted and making it back to the lair with the freed treasure.

He replied dryly, "Mick's never let something go just because it could kill him. He'd pet a rattlesnake if it had a gold watch around its neck."

"I don't think snakes have necks," Ray knelt down in front of Mick and checked his pulse, staring at his watch while he did.

Len looked between them, shaken but quickly compartmentalizing to keep it from showing. Keeping his cool was part of his thing. He couldn't lose it now just because his best friend was a dumbass who needed every room to be child proofed to keep from killing himself.

"He's okay." It was said as a statement, but it was a question.

Ray reached out and pat his arm, and Curtis smiled. "I have a feeling he'll wake up mad, because that hurt like hell and he seems like the type to rage."

"You have no idea."

Curtis did some final checking before reassuring him. "But he'll live. With a really bad earache. I'd actually prefer if he didn't take this out on me, so if you could prevent him dragging me into a cage match, that would be great, thanks."

"No cage match," Len promised with a smirk. "Bare fists, no weapons, brawl at dawn."

Curtis laughed nervously. "You're joking, right?"

"Help me get him up," Len grabbed one side of Mick, and Ray took the other.

Curtis grew alarmed as he switched his appeal to Ray, "He's joking."

"I wouldn't count on it," Ray said, grunting as they hefted him up.

"You're here to protect me. You remember that, right?" Curtis called after them as they made slow progress towards the bedroom.

"Don't worry," Len called back, straining under Mick's weight. "You won't die. You'll just end up with a really bad earache. Eye for an eye and all that."

Curtis followed after them. "I don't like this joke."

That was too bad, because Len did.

****

Mick didn't wake up wanting to pour gasoline on the scientists. His knee-jerk rage was more like glaring at the floor after you tripped. He grabbed a hammer - and really, it was on them for not hiding everything that could be weaponized while he was unconscious - and lumbered back to the lab to smash the inanimate object like it had been planning an attack for weeks and finally made its move.

Ray and Curtis hurried after him, all wide nervous eyes and hand waving pleas for calm. Len stopped him with a hand to his chest in front of the table where it sat.

"Now, Mick," he reasoned, "when you grab snakes, the snake bites. Don't grab it, and the venom won't be a problem."

"I feel like snakes are getting more references than is normal," Curtis said, brow furrowing. "Is there an actual cautionary snake tale here?"

Len looked around Mick to answer with bullet points. "New Mexico, a jewelry store heist, a misguided trip through the desert to shake the cops, and rattlesnakes. For the record, that is not a confession."

Ray frowned. Len liked that exasperated pout. For him, it was better than a smile.

Len turned back to his partner. "You crush that thing, and I'll be stuck out here longer. Unless you want to take my spot babysitting the geek squad." After a measured pause where he clearly wanted to _Hulk Smash!_ all over the device anyway, Mick grunted.

Len slapped his arm. "You don't have to like it, but something that powerful, you have to respect."

His gaze trailed to Curtis and Ray, the minds behind all of that power, and he grudgingly supposed that the same went for them. Some people admired art, could sit on a gallery bench and stare at every brushstroke and use of color until the painting existed more fully inside of their mind than on the canvas. He experienced that same curious awe for a well-crafted, creative weapon, and their exhibit could lay someone as strong as Mick out even unfinished with weeks of work ahead.

He wouldn't be sending them Christmas cards when this was over, but his disdain chipped around the edges, remolded into a reflection of the respect he felt for the weapon itself. They were smart, he gave them that. They saved his best friend's life, he gave them that too.

He supposed he would stop trying to freeze them to death while they were sleeping.

****

He told himself it was boredom that propelled him to seek out their company, and it was a fairly convincing lie even to himself since it was partially true. Mick had left a couple of days ago, and the sad truth was that it didn't look like anyone would burst in trying to destroy them any time soon. There was nothing to do but bother Goody Two-Shoesdee and Goody Two-Shoesdum and hope that their annoyance served to entertain him.

Only, they weren't annoyed.

Len started by cooking dinner for the three of them, _accidentally_ putting far too much salt in their shares. He wanted them to spit in their napkins, curse his name, and stalk off in two big ol' overgrown huffs. What he got instead were comical but subtle looks of surprise, followed by perseverance through the whole meal with smiling gratitude for all his effort:

"Thank you, Snart."

"This is delicious. You could be a chef. At like, a five-star restaurant. Gordon Ramsay would cry eating this, because all he is, is mad and not as good as you." Apparently, Curtis couldn't lie without overselling. It was like living with monks. Only worse, because at least monks sometimes took vows of silence.

'Delicious' had not been his aim. Getting under their skin was, but their gratitude was genuine anyway. Looked like being satisfied wasn't as important as being polite. He should have known.

He tried again by asking them to play cards. They were surprised but delighted, and his cardboard smile was met with two bright ones.

They sat on stools around one of the work tables in the lab with the shiny black surface, and he dealt the cards with tricks he picked up from skilled con artists and arranged mirrors to see each of their hands at any given time. He figured winning constantly would be enough to wear down their spirits and send them storming off.

No such luck. Instead, they were impressed.

"You're really good, Snart." Ray was happy for him at his own expense.

Curtis nodded, rearranging the cards of his losing hand that Len was spying on with the mirror behind him. "Definitely. Idea! We should go to Vegas together."

"Slot machines, blackjack table," Ray mused, going along with the idea easily as he picked up a couple of cards.

"And we have to catch a show," Curtis went on like it was a realistic proposition and not the cause of the deep frown line between Len's eyes.

"Music or magic?" Ray asked.

Curtis gave him a look. "If it's only one, it has to be—"

"—magic," they finished in unison, eyes catching and matching smiles lighting their faces.

Len was going to be sick.

"No one's going to Vegas," he said, happy to burst their bubble. And since his attempt to rile them had failed, he added, "And I've been cheating this whole time."

He smiled, pleased with himself, and waited for the grumbling to start. It didn't.

"Really?" Ray asked and had the gall to smile. "I never picked up on that. Pretty sneaky, Snart."

"Totally," Curtis agreed, eyebrows shooting up. "We should definitely go to Vegas. Imagine the money. Who needs research grants when they can basically walk into a casino and say, 'Fill up these moneybags, please.'" He glanced up at him. "Why do you steal all the time when you could just cheat?"

Now Ray's trademark disapproval appeared. "There is no difference."

A friendly card game was all in good fun, but actual monetary profit was off the table. What a waste.

A debate sparked up, and he thought he was finally going to get the fight he was spoiling for, but his hopes were dashed when he noticed the teasing gleams in their eyes while they argued. Len stared at their playful back-and-forth dryly. The bastards were flirting.

The fight ended with a depressing conclusion:

"So it's decided," Curtis said, beaming. "We're going to Vegas to see a magic show."

He was tempted to grab the device like Mick had to put an end to his misery.

They were either raised by Mary Poppins or hoarding high-grade sedatives, because nothing he threw at them had the effect he wanted. As a result, he realized after a while that a week had gone by without him actively trying to get on their nerves.

Even worse, by some awful twist of Fate, they were no longer just pains in his ass. Prolonged exposure had transformed them. The pains in the ass were his friends.

****

Before long, they were more.

****

"We should do team building exercises," Ray suggested one night while they were lying in their beds.

Sleep was eluding Len, so he didn't mind the talking. He was, however, deeply offended that he wasn't bothered by it since being bothered by Ray was normal, comfortable even. Something that felt good despite itself. So he felt the need to summon up some faux attitude to maintain equilibrium.

"We're not a team. We're three people temporarily trapped together that can't stand each other."

"I can stand you," Curtis contradicted. "Which is an underwhelming way of saying I like you. And I give really honest evaluations. At first, I was intimidated, but then I was like, this guy can really work a parka. Sure, you'd be a Slytherin and I'm not totally convinced I wouldn't find the Dark Mark on your forearm, but redemption stories are a classic trope for a reason. Your life would make a great biopic: from villain, to hero, to _legend_. I am intrigued. So yeah, I'm standing you. Grump all you want, but you have been stood."

God, he could run his mouth. He wondered what other talents it had but prompted Ray about his idea to keep Curtis from fan casting the hypothetical biopic after he threw out his dream director. (Frank Darabont or Gus Van Sant circa mid-90's, "To capture that tear-jerker tone, Captain Cold: The Good Will Shawshank Hunting Redemption. It could work.")

"Let's role-play as each other," Ray said. "It helps to see how others view ourselves. We used to do it at space camp. Hey, I wonder how many of those guys actually did grow up to be astronauts."

Probably none.

"Probably a bunch," Ray said. He should have done billboard ads for Colgate. Not even graffiti or daily assaults of direct sunlight could dim his smile, which prompted Len to play along.

"Fine. I'll go first." He deadpanned, "I'm Raymond. Science thinks that rainbows are the refraction of sun rays in rain, but really, they stream out of my ass. I sneeze sunshine. And when life gives me lemons, I piss lemonade."

He rolled his head along his pillow to see Ray giving him a put out but determined look. "That's not really the spirit of the game, but thank you for choosing to participate. I'm happy that my positivity has made an impression on you."

Truly, there must have been a pot of gold at the end of his ass rainbow.

"My turn." Ray thought a second before trying. "My name is Curtis Holt. I'm very smart, have a great attitude and a good heart. I'll probably have my own company one day, and my work will end up helping a lot of people."

An instant cavity. "How sweet. When you two finally sleep together, make sure to weep around simultaneous 'I love you's to make sure Hallmark develops the special that your vanilla romance deserves."

If his biopic was gritty with R-rated violence if Mick featured in it, theirs would clearly be a made-for-TV movie of the week that aired around the holidays.

"I— That's—" Ray's awkward laugh was more telling than Len's joke. If opposites attracted, so did bumbling same-y nice guys. It was obvious he wanted to jump Holt's bones since they first shook hands and had rambling, science nerdgasms. The idea was not unappealing.

"My turn." Curtis jumped in to move the moment on. "I'm Captain Cold, and I hate everything, especially various babies of all species. Kittens, puppies, whatever baby sloths are called - yuck. I only like stealing stuff, alcohol, and Mick."

"And Lisa," Len added for no reason in particular.

"Who's Lisa?" Curtis asked.

There was no reason to answer. "My sister."

That opened the door to more questions, all personal, none any of their business. Oddly, he answered more than he ignored: stuff about his family, his past, favorite crime sprees (with disclaimers calling it fiction in case they wanted to narc him out), weird little things he never thought about on his own, like his favorite childhood Christmas present and what cartoons he and Lisa used to watch. He blamed the late hour and insomnia for why he asked questions back. Besides, he could always use their life stories against them, should the need arise. It was ammo.

And drifting off peacefully to the sound of Curtis and Ray's soft chatter was the reason he had boring good dreams instead of entertaining nightmares. He decided to hold that against them too.

****

Len came in after a long night working on the snowmobiles and noticed the glow of a screen light from their cramped living room. The heater was up high. He pulled his parka off and leaned in the doorway in his sweater.

Curtis was sitting up in the middle of the loveseat watching something on his laptop on the table across from him.

"Still up?" Curtis asked before he could slink away unseen to go to bed.

"You too."

He pointed at the screen. " _Die Hard_."

Len wandered over and sat down on his left, pressing against his hip and the armrest. Bruce Willis was running across the screen in all his sweaty blue collar glory.

"I never thought John McClane could take me down," he pondered aloud. "His adversaries made stupid mistakes."

Curtis glanced at him a couple of times. "You're kidding, right? John McClane would definitely take you down. All the way down. Below sea level down. And for the record, so would Jack Bauer and Rambo and Indiana Jones and Chuck Norris."

"That's not fair," he drawled sarcastically. "I never agreed to go up against ol' Chuck. And I'm not sure I'm the target antagonist for any of the others."

Curtis shrugged, an almost sheepish gesture that he felt against his own shoulder. "I'm just saying, you're not as tough as you think you are. Or as bad."

"I like being bad."

"I believe that," Curtis replied, looking back at him, and Len was suddenly much more aware of how close they were. His dark eyes were thoughtful behind his glasses, and the press of him against his side felt more deliberate with his locked gaze so near, the heat of him taking away the last of the chill from the garage. "I just don't believe that's all you are."

Most days, he didn't think that mattered. Tonight, he wondered if maybe it did.

****

With the snowmobiles as souped up as he could make them, he turned his attention to the messy woodshop corner of the garage. There were plenty of materials to work with. He hadn't built anything of that nature since shop class after he got out of juvie (a birdhouse for him and a birdhouse for Mick that he used for fire kindling when they got it back), but he liked working with his hands. It was something to do. He was cutting a piece of wood with a buzz saw after measuring it carefully when Ray came in from the lab entrance door.

"Hey."

Len didn't look up from his work.

"Can you clean this?" Ray asked. He was prepared to treat him to a colorful reply in the negative with the added dig to put on an apron and clean it himself when he glanced up and paused when he saw that Ray was holding a rifle. Not what he was expecting. "I would, but I've never done it before. Safety first."

After a moment's consideration, he put the wood down and took the gun from him. "How do you know I won't shoot you with it?"

"You talk a big game." Ray's easy smile flashed up and away from him as he looked around the garage and replied with casual certainty, "But you'd never hurt me."

A couple of months ago, he would have laughed and fired the rifle off just to scare the hell out of him. That was a couple of months ago. His words carried real weight to them now, because Len knew that, no, even without committing to a job to protect him and Curtis, he wouldn't hurt him on purpose. Either of them. It was an unsettling thought, but it was something else too, something he wasn't sure what to call.

Before he could think too hard on it, he got up and accepted the box of ammo from him too. "Get Holt. We'll make a day of it."

"You sure?" he asked, wary of his invitation. "It'll delay the completion of the project. I thought you wanted out of here."

He rolled his eyes. Ray was probably the kid that stayed behind to talk to the teacher instead of running for the playground when the recess bell rang. "You've both been working around the clock on that thing. It'll do you good to take in some air, clear the cluttered corners of your narrow minds."

Ray scowled, but it was halfhearted.

He set up a target on a tree far in the back of the lab and taught his eager students how to shoot. He went up behind each of them in turn, his arms lining up their shots, and spoke quiet instructions into their ears. It was freezing outside, but the air between the three of them ran several degrees hotter.

****

He was nursing his second beer at the bar when the lumberjack with the big flannel coat and rattail hair came over and leaned next to his stool.

"What are you getting up to out there?" he asked, voice low and eyes sharp with curiosity.

Len turned to him, slow and uninterested. "Out where?"

He came out regularly enough to recognize the locals now. This guy was either new or purposefully kept under the radar.

"Look, I work for a man named George Vance. He owns Vance Technologies."

"Good for you."

"Word is, that old lab is occupied again. It's not exactly a tourist destination. Most people think it's a dump, but Vance knows better. You wouldn't be out there unless you were building something, and you wouldn't build it way out there unless it was good enough to keep secret."

The last thing they needed was to have eyes on them when they were getting close to the finish line.

He grabbed him by the front of the jacket as he got up and shoved him against the bar hard enough for it to hurt through the padding of all the layers he was wearing.

"I don't like spies."

"Good thing I'm not one." His eyes were steady and pointed. Len let him go. "I've seen the other two in here a couple of times, but I knew you were the one to approach. They're straight and narrow. You're something else."

A wild card.

"Do you have a point?"

He straightened his coat. "I have an offer."

Turned out, Vance had a longstanding competitive nature with Palmer Technologies and kept tabs on all of his comings and goings, even noticing that an abandoned Alaskan lab was occupied after only a few weeks. For a generous price - the kind of number with enough zeroes to make Mick's head spin faster than a full keg - he offered Len the opportunity to be their inside man. He would feed Vance information and design details on what they were making, or for an even more dizzying price, he could deliver the actual device itself.

Len let the weight of all that money sit in his thoughts. That would set him and Mick up nice. They could retire their ill-fitting capes and only steal for fun. It was a pretty enough thought to hesitate.

But the weight didn't just sit in his thoughts; it sat heavily on his conscience, an itchy, uncomfortable thing that he thought he purged in his youth like a fever or a bad rash. It wasn't Central City that stalled him. He couldn't care less if the Arrow took down the current bane of the city or fell at his hand. No. It was Curtis and Ray. He liked being an asshole, thrived on it even. It kept life fresh. For whatever reason, however, he didn't like the idea of being an asshole to them. Not when it counted. Stopping bad guys, saving people - it counted. To them.

Vowing to never tell Mick about this (or tell him while his mouth was full to see if he choked), he drank the last of his beer and set it back down with a loud thud of finality like a judge's gavel coming down to call order and sentence him to a very inconvenient attack of conscience.

"No deal."

He went home, and for the first time in his life, left dirty money behind. He rode over the snow, waiting for a grudge to build against the boy scouts who were projecting their square morality all the way from the lab. Somehow, it never happened.

****

The next time he found himself alone in the garage with Ray, it was a reversal of roles. Ray was sitting at the woodshop desk as Len walked in, holding the little tree he had carved. A third of the way through making a birdhouse, he scrapped it and tried his hand at wood carving instead. He thought it came out well for a first try.

"Snart," Ray greeted when he didn't announce himself, still not looking up from the tree in his hand.

"Raymond." Len walked over and propped a hip against the desk beside him. "Doing some snooping?"

"No." He lifted his admittedly imperfect first attempt. "Admiring. This is really good."

It was passable, but Len wasn't one to downplay his own work. He watched him. Like everything else about him, his admiration appeared sincere. "Keep it."

Ray looked up in surprise. "Yeah?"

He tilted his chin towards it. "You can use it at Christmas while you're in your Atom suit."

Ray chuckled and stood up, but Len straightened out of his lean at the same time putting them chest to chest. The accidental proximity was unexpected, but what was more unexpected was how the unintentional closeness wasn't entirely unpleasant. He felt glimpses of it before: bumping into each other in the narrow hallway, brushing hands while reaching for the salt, practically spooning behind him to pass on his wisdom with guns. He blamed his need for mental stimulation for the way he teased those moments out longer than necessary, but there Ray was, right in his face, and instinct didn't appear to be telling either of them to jump away. In fact, he got the impression from the way Ray's hands flinched at his sides that instinct was telling him it would be alright to move closer.

"Oh," Ray said with a short clip of nervous laughter. "Sorry."

"Why are you good guys always sorry for everything?" Len asked without stepping back.

Even that close, Ray's eyes didn't lose their inherent sweetness, that innocent gleam of good intentions and heart that made Len's fingers flex. If he got that spark in his hands, he wasn't sure if he would dissect it or crush it in his fist. A whisper in a dark, ignored corner of his mind brought forth memories of his father putting his sister's life in danger and the few times during a job when he thought Mick might be at real risk. It wasn't in his nature to be protective, but that whisper made its case anyway.

"Thanks for the tree," Ray said quietly instead of answering. Still, neither moved.

For a moment, the air between them tightened and confusion stole over Ray's face. His eyes flicked down, and Len could feel the weight of his gaze across his lips. His tongue darted out and tasted it.

But they had a job to do, and neither of them was ready to look at the _why_ and _what_ that rose between them like the ghost of what could be if they looked at it long enough.

"It's nothing," Len said and stepped back.

A brief, startled look crossed Ray's face before he shook himself, and the moment broke. Clearing his throat, he nodded as he stepped away.

"See ya." He smiled and left, banging his shin on one of the snowmobiles as he made his escape.

Len smothered the whisper to silence and picked up another piece of wood. Grabbing his knife, he started shaping something new.

****

Leaning in the doorway out of sight, he watched as Curtis returned to his work station and discovered the bookend Len built for him with the _Goonies_ skull and crossbones emblem carved into the side.

Curtis puzzled over it before beaming and quickly looking up and around. Len slipped off into the hallway unseen and froze his lips in a smirk before they could continue into the smile he felt coming on.

He was passing the time. That was all.

****

The last he heard, they were no more than a week away on the project, a couple of days ahead of schedule. He expected to get back in the building and hear nothing but the occasional clink of the machines as they worked. He got used to that sound.

Sometimes he would modify his gun in there while they were concentrating. The occasional urge to interrupt and ruffle their feathers rose up, but there was a strange peacefulness in the silent work together, all of them focused, fingers moving efficiently. That wasn't the case now.

He came in through the garage entrance, and filtering down the hall, he could hear a muffled heated exchange between the others. Well, as heated as those two ever got, slightly raised voices, infused with the sour taste of anxiety. They worried too much. About everything. If Mick wanted to watch the world burn, those two wanted to snuff out every campfire just to make sure it didn't spread and cause a forest fire. He preferred the adjacent position, indifference while things burned or didn't. It wasn't his problem.

It wasn't in their nature to not make everything their problem, however. Pitiful as it was.

He walked into the lab and moseyed over to the back where they were standing opposite each other engaged in some melodramatic debate. That was another thing. They had to work everything out, compromise, give a lot, get a little. It always struck Len as much easier to do what he wanted and damn anyone else's feelings about it. They were apples and oranges, where oranges were slightly evil and apples kept the doctor away and saved the world.

"What's the problem?" he asked, interrupting an imploring stare from Ray and a crossed arm, defiant head shake from Curtis. He tossed his coat on a table.

The heater was up high enough for Ray to have ditched his sweater. His biceps were exposed, and what biceps they were. He could arm wrestle with a tree trunk and win. Big guy. Strong hands. Len wondered what else he could do with those hands and felt a smirk coming on. Ray had gone from a petty annoyance to attractive. It truly was the end times.

"I can't do it," Curtis answered, still holding his staring contest with Ray.

"Do what? I need a little more to go on," Len replied. "Do you need a new part, time, an orgasm? I can help you with a couple of those."

His open flirting was enough to finally jog Curtis out of his glaring refusal of whatever it was he was refusing. It took Ray by surprise too. He did a double-take on Len.

"Uh, I—" Curtis struggled a moment, nudging Len's smirk to grow, before shaking his head clear. "I can't finish the device."

Len hopped up onto the table opposite where they were standing, legs swinging idly. "Why not?"

He found that he didn't care very much about another delay. It wasn't that he liked it out there. It was that somewhere between movie night Fridays where he had his pick or made fun of theirs and glimpses of them changing or getting ready to shower through cracked doors as he walked by, he stopped hating it. He wasn't going to backseat drive his libido. They were hot. So was he. It wasn't like it had to mean anything.

"I know this is difficult for you," Ray addressed Curtis, imploring him with those 'don't ya wanna buy my girl scout cookies' eyes and turned to Len, explaining, "Curtis is having a crisis of morality."

Of course he was, because the world didn't feel right to them unless it was resting on their shoulders.

"That sounds right up your alley. Fix him."

"I don't need to be fixed," Curtis argued. "I need to be sure that this weapon I'm making won't one day find its way into the hands of someone with a different agenda than our band of heroes. And I can't do that. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if someone else got it. If they modified it, used it against innocent people. And since I can't know, I can't do it. I won't finish. Oliver will have to find another way. I can't be the atom bomb guy! I wasn't built for that kind of guilt."

Len understood now. "Ah. You're on a red road."

"What?"

"It's what my father used to call it when you choose a path likely to do you more harm than good. 'You're leaving blood on the pavement, Leonard.' It's not smart, and martyrdom doesn't pay. I prefer jewels over heroics."

"And here I prefer a clear conscience," Ray countered.

Curtis looked between them. "Is there any scenario where I can have jewels _and_ a clear conscience, because I've always thought I could pull off a crown."

Ray's frown looked more like fondness buried under exasperation.

"Here's what I propose." Len hopped down and spread his hands as he laid it out. "You finish. We complete the mission, and hand the device over to Green Arrow and Co.— Easy," he pressed as Curtis tried to protest. "Raymond and I stick around in Central City for a while. Until the guy is dead or captured. Then we personally make sure the weapon is destroyed, retired into smithereens."

Curtis blinked in surprise. "You'd do that?"

Ray was bewildered. "Yeah, you'd do that?"

With a heavy sigh, he gave a tiny shrug since he caught himself off-guard too. "It appears that I would. Deal?"

Curtis and Ray glanced at each other and held their hands out, agreeing in unison, "Deal."

Len looked down at their simultaneously offered hands, crossed his arms, and shook on it at the same time. Their hands lingered together longer than necessary, and they pretended not to notice.

It looked like a staggering amount of money wasn't enough to persuade him into a deal, but a couple pairs of big brown eyes were. Surely, one of the Seven Signs of the apocalypse. Opening himself up to them, letting his amusement at their expense transition into camaraderie, attraction, and maybe even creep towards the blurry edges of something more… Maybe he was on a red road of his own.

****

They finished the night before they were scheduled to do so. Len was fixing to crawl into bed and go to sleep when Curtis and Ray burst into the bedroom in noisy excitement. He turned towards the door and was greeted by wide smiles.

"We're done!" Curtis announced. "I finished."

Still grinning, he and Ray high-fived. Their enthusiasm was so innocent and boyish, but the loud sound of it went off like a gun at a starting line for Len. It lit up and flashed like he just got his cue to leave the green room and head on stage. They were busy for a long time, but it was done. Mission over. All work and no play made Jack a dull boy, and unlike Jack, Len was the furthest thing from dull.

"You can contact Rip in the morning," Curtis was saying as Len walked up to him. "With any luck, we can head out to Central City by the afternoon. No more snow. I've had enough snow to last me a lifetime, let me tell you. I'm getting my ass to a beach as soon as I can get the vacation time. I—mmm!"

Len had grabbed him by the front of his sweater and yanked him close, gripping the back of his head and bringing his face to his. The second their lips pressed together, he felt his internal balance realign. He wasn't used to not going for what he wanted. The wait had served him well. Every time he noticed the stupid sweetness of his embarrassed smiles, the length of his fingers, or how easy it was to knock him off kilter with a line or innuendo, rolled into one heated moment as their lips slid together. After a second, Curtis kissed back, and it was as good as he expected it would be while he was holding back to stick to the schedule.

When they broke apart, Curtis was shocked into stupid silence, and Ray was gaping at them frozen.

Before either of them could make a thing of it, Len hauled Ray closer and kissed him just as vigorously. Their kiss was no less passionate but harder, more likely to bruise, because his moments with Curtis were a collection of soft curiosities, and his build-up with Ray had edges sharpened on the rocks of arguments and pushback. Curtis tasted like something to keep, and Ray tasted like something to conquer.

Pulling back, he looked up, unapologetic in the face of Ray's wide-eyed silence.

Len wasn't in the business of saying please. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a strong mutual attraction between the three of us despite our remarkable incompatibility. I propose sex. Yes or no?"

There it was, laid out bare for all to see. He wanted them. If they wanted him back, and if those kisses were anything to go by, they did, they could have him. Ray sputtered.

Looking between Len's frank proposal and Ray's baffled shock, Curtis quickly shot out, "I vote yes."

That shoved Ray's voice back into him, "Curtis!"

Hesitating only a moment, Curtis stepped closer and leaned in, pressing his lips against Ray's and putting the strength of his conviction behind the kiss as he held Ray's face and sealed his vote, locked it in, leapt without looking. It took a second, but Ray's hands rose to Curtis' arms and held on. Len watched without jealousy, feeling something quite different uncurl in his chest at the sight of them touching, being touched.

"Don't tell me there's not something there, man," Curtis murmured, breathing hard.

Len smiled, and he felt more villainous now than he did when smashing glass cases and stealing the diamonds inside. "That's two yeas. Palmer, what say you?"

"I say you two are crazy. We can't." He really should have been born in a black and white 50's sitcom. Slicked back hair and home for supper, in time to deliver a wholesome family message to the masses.

Len disagreed. "We could and will if it's unanimous. Sex is on the table, and Curtis has seconded. You can pass the motion and strip, wake up tomorrow with both of us in bed with you. Or you can vote it down, because you think you should and never know if your fantasies are as good as the real thing. Your choice, Raymond."

The moment hung in the air, each of them still, waiting. He was on the brink of attributing it to a mix of cabin fever and insanity and turning in when Ray's face shifted from worried indecision to determination. He went to his cot and dragged it over, shoving it against Len's bed. Another yea.

The motion passed.

****

Curtis and Ray were still in bed when Mick called, bare chested and draped over each other in the makeshift queen bed of their cheap cots. Len pulled his pants on and took his phone out into the hall, wandering to the living room with it.

_"Guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow,_ " Mick said when he answered.

"Today, actually," Len corrected. "Finished early."

_"That so? How 'bout we celebrate with beers and a fight with the locals. I've been itching for a punching bag."_

"Sounds good." He hesitated, but figured it was best to put it out in the open since he had his time in Central City to explain and Curtis and Ray couldn't lie to save their own lives. "Listen. Palmer and Holt... we slept together."

_"For warmth, because you were dying of hypothermia?"_

Amusement took a lap around his nerves. He didn't need his approval, but he never liked it when they weren't on the same page. That was something else he knew about the word 'team'.

"No," he answered. "There was sex involved, and our lives weren't at stake."

That made Mick pause longer. _"Is it a hit and run deal?"_

"I... don't think so." He wouldn't blame Mick if he needed time to process since he surprised himself with the news. "Don't get me wrong. They're insufferable. Raymond is socially inept, and Holt doesn't know how to shut up. It's one of life's great tragedies that I appear to like them anyway."

Mick grunted, and for a long moment, he thought that was all he was going to say on the issue. One gruff noise smudged with confusion and, perhaps, distaste.

But the silence was broken, and all he had to say about the issue was, _"The geek - the_ geekier _one."_ He assumed he meant Curtis since Mick thought anyone who wore glasses was just the right size to be stuffed in a trashcan and rolled down a hill. _"He's tall. Got good bones. Any siblings?"_

A smile crawled across his face, and he answered flatly, "I'll ask."

They hung up at ease.

****

They shared one last breakfast in their Alaskan getaway and went outside with their bags and the little device that was going to save a city.

Len met their eyes as Rip's ship descended in the huge field of snow in front of them. There was mischief in his eyes and something new in his heart. Curtis pushed up his glasses against the wind created by the ship's descent and lowered his eyes, the happiness on his face easy to see even at an angle. Ray reached out, tentative but sure, fingers ghosting against the back of Len's hand. It hit Len like a blow from that device. This wouldn't end after his time in Central City was up.

If this was a red road, he would take his chances.


End file.
